Bill Mazeroski

Almost every kid who has ever played baseball fantasizes coming up in the bottom of the ninth inning during the seventh game of the World Series and hitting a home run to win it.

As of the 2010 World Series, only one person has ever accomplished this. It occurred on October 13, 1960, at 3:36 p.m. That was when the Pittsburgh Pirates’ second baseman, Bill Mazeroski, deposited New York Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry’s slider over the brick wall at Forbes Field to bring a World Series championship to Pittsburgh for the first time in 35 years. It was perhaps the most notable moment of a career that led to the Baseball Hall of Fame – although, ironically, more for his fielding than his hitting.

The hero of this tale was, with a little stretch of the imagination, a hometown boy. William Stanley Mazeroski was born on September 5, 1936, in Wheeling, West Virginia, 60 miles from Pittsburgh. His parents, Louis and Mayme Mazeroski, lived in Witch Hazel, Ohio, a town nestled in the hills between Steubenville, Ohio, and Wheeling. Louis was a coal miner. The Mazeroski family – the parents, Bill, and a sister, Mary – lived in a one-room dwelling with no electricity or indoor plumbing. According to Bill’s childhood friend Bill Del Vecchio, the house was slightly bigger than a chicken coop.1

Bill grew up loving to play sports – any sport. But the family rarely had the extra money for things such as a baseball glove. Family legend has it that young Bill bought his first glove with the money he earned digging his uncle Og’s outhouse. He purchased a three-finger model that was slightly bigger than his hand.2 (During his professional career Mazeroski preferred to play with a smaller glove, so the ball would not get “lost” in the webbing. He spent a lot of time breaking in his glove, and used it for five or six years, unlike teammate Bill Virdon, who broke in a new one each season.)

Bill’s childhood nickname was Catfish. During his youth, he fished every day – out of necessity, to provide food for the family table.

Bill’s father, Louis, was a promising player as a youth, and had a tryout with the Cleveland Indians, but his baseball dreams were extinguished when his foot was crushed by falling coal in a mine. Mazeroski said his father steered him away from working in the coal mines. The closest he got to the mines was playing baseball in the coal mine leagues with adults at the age of 13.

Louis and Bill played catch often in their backyard. Louis also threw an endless amount of tennis balls against a brick wall, forcing his son to use both hands and sharpen his reflexes for bad hops. Those sessions proved helpful years later, when Bill began playing on the rock-hard infield of Forbes Field. Louis was able to see his son play in the major leagues before he died on February 1, 1959, at the age of 59.3

Baseball was young Mazeroski’s favorite sport, but his high-school classmates remembered how he could punt a ball 60 yards. Of course, Louis never allowed him to play on the football team. Bill also excelled in basketball as a 5-foot-11 center. During his senior year at Warren Consolidated High School in Tiltonville, Ohio, he averaged 27 points a game. He was named to the All-Ohio State basketball team, and was offered scholarships by Ohio State, Duquesne, and West Virginia Universities.

Still, it was on the diamond where Mazeroski stood out. When Al Burazio, his high-school coach, saw him play as a freshman, he promised Bill, “I’m going to make a big leaguer out of you.”4 Mazeroski played several positions, mostly pitcher and shortstop, and was named team captain in his junior year. He

led his team to the Ohio state championship tournament in 1953. The team from the small rural school – his graduating class had only 60 students – was a ragtag group, with mismatched uniforms. But playing schools from Akron and Cincinnati, the team went to the finals, only to lose 2-1. Mazeroski pitched and won a game in the morning but lost in the afternoon, despite Bill’s two-hitter. Both runs scored when a ball went through the center fielder’s legs.

When Mazeroski was 16, Coach Burazio took him to a Pirates tryout at Forbes Field. The experience left a positive effect on the youngster, because he returned the following year. After he finished high school, he was courted by the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and the Pirates. All but the Pirates wanted to start him in Class D. While Mazeroski was a big Indians fan – he grew up listening to Jimmy Dudley and Jack Graney announce their games – he chose to sign with Pittsburgh, which gave him a $4,000 bonus and promised to start him at Class A Williamsport (Eastern League).

There was a glut of shortstops in the Pirates’ system, so Mazeroski was asked to take some groundballs at second base. After the Pirates’ general manager, Branch Rickey, saw him make the pivot a couple of times, he informed the rookie that he was now a second baseman.

Maz batted just .235 his first year at Williamsport, but it was his glove and not his bat that kept him in the lineup. He showed enough to receive a promotion to the Triple-A Hollywood Stars his second season, but when his batting average sank to .170 after 21 games, he returned to Williamsport, where he finished strong, batting .293 with 11 home runs. Back in Hollywood in 1956, he was batting .306 at midseason when the Pirates brought him up. He was 19 years old.

Mazeroski made his major-league debut on July 7, starting at second base against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York. He collected his first hit, off John Antonelli, and was the middleman in the first of the 1,706 double plays he would take part in during his 17-year major-league career. His fielding drew praise, but the teenager needed work at the plate. After 17 games his batting average was an anemic .188, but he finished the season at.243 in 81 games for the seventh-place Pirates.

Mazeroski won the second-base job in spring training in 1957. His amazing glove won him the job over Johnny O’Brien, and it didn’t hurt that he hit an impressive .442 in 18 exhibition games. Hall of Famer George Sisler, then a Pirates coach and hitting guru, took Mazeroski under his wing, teaching him to go with the pitch and not try to pull everything. Mazeroski rewarded his teacher with a .283 average, eight homers, and 54 runs batted in.

While the 1957 season was impressive, 1958 was a breakout one for Mazeroski. He was selected to the National League team for the All-Star Game for the first time. In recent years he recalled that the game was the site of his biggest embarrassment. It was not because he went 0-fort-4 and struck out once. After two seasons in the major leagues he had earned a reputation for turning the double play, so the American League players came out to watch the National Leaguers take fielding practice. Mazeroski told friend and former teammate Nellie King that he bumbled and stumbled, even forgot which foot to touch the base with, how to catch or throw to first.5 But in the game he turned two double plays.

Mazeroski won the first of eight Gold Glove Awards in 1958, and his fellow players chose him for The Sporting News All-Star Fielding Team, edging out Johnny Temple of Cincinnati. Mazeroski appeared in 152 games and handled 857 chances, including 496 assists, while turning 118 double plays.6 At the plate he hit .275, with 19 home runs. After the season he and Milene Nicholson, secretary to Rex Bowen, the head of the Pirates scouting department, were married. Manager Danny Murtaugh had “ordered” the shy second baseman to ask her out. A teammate, pitcher Bob Purkey, was his best man.

As much as 1958 was a breakout, the following season could be considered a disappointment. Mazeroski pulled a leg muscle early in the season and put on excessive weight. He admitted to “loafing” and not exercising during the offseason. He did not join his teammates until June 17, but still made the All-Star team, probably more on reputation than playing. He finished the season with a .241 batting average.

After a second-place finish in 1958 the Pirates slid to fourth-place finish in 1959. The Pirates’ management decided to make players’ weight a contract issue for the following season. Murtaugh blamed poor seasons by Mazeroski, pitcher Bob Friend (8-19), Bob Skinner, and Bill Virdon as the culprits in the team’s poor performance. The manager felt that the extra pounds held back Friend and Mazeroski.7 Bill took the hint and responded by changing his diet, exercising regularly, and reporting each week to the Pirates office to have his weight checked. He quickly returned to his normal playing weight.

Optimism ran rampant in Pittsburgh before the 1960 season. Some baseball insiders liked the Pirates’ chances of winning the pennant. The season did not start out promising. The Pirates opened the season by losing 4-3 to the Braves in Milwaukee. They rebounded by winning their next game, the home opener, pounding the Reds 13-0. Bob Friend was the winner and Mazeroski had a home run and four RBIs. But it was their performance on April 17 that defined the team. They defeated Cincinnati 6-5 on a walk-off home run by Bob Skinner. It was the first of 28 Pirates’ victories in games in which they were losing or tied after the sixth inning. In the process, the Pirates became known as the “Battlin’ Bucs.” They saved their most dramatic performance for the end – Game Seven of the World Series.

The Series was tied at three wins apiece. Each victory by the Yankees was a blowout; in the three games they outscored Pittsburgh 38-3. The Pirates’ three victories were by 6-4, 3-2, and 5-2. Game Seven was a seesaw battle. The Pirates struck first with a two-run homer by Rocky Nelson in the first inning. They added two more on a single by Virdon single in the second. Vernon Law, the starting pitcher, cruised into the sixth inning leading 4-1. Battling fatigue and pain, he left without retiring a batter, leaving runners on first and second.8 Manager Murtaugh brought in Elroy Face, who gave up a run-scoring single to Mickey Mantle, then a three-run homer by Yogi Berra that put the Yankees ahead, 5-4. New York increased its lead with two more runs in the top of the eighth. Undaunted, the Pirates began to bounce back. Gino Cimoli led off the bottom of the inning with a single. Virdon hit a “tailor-made” double-play ball, which took a wicked hop and struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat. After Kubek left the game, Dick Groat singled to drive in a run. Manager Casey Stengel removed pitcher Bobby Shantz in favor of Jim Coates. Bob Skinner sacrificed the runners along. Roberto Clemente beat out a grounder to first baseman Moose Skowron when Coates was late covering the base, and Virdon scored. With a count of 2 and 2, Hal Smith hit a three-run homer, and he Pirates were back in the lead.

Thirty years later Mazeroski recalled, “After Smith got us ahead, I just raced onto the field. I just couldn’t wait to get those last three outs. Of course, we didn’t get those three outs, we didn’t get them before they scored two runs.”9

Bob Friend came in to pitch the ninth. He quickly gave up singles to Bobby Richardson and pinch-hitter Dale Long. Murtaugh yanked Friend in favor of Harvey Haddix. Roger Maris fouled out to the catcher but Mantle drove in Richardson with a single as pinch-runner Gil McDougald advanced to third. Yogi Berra grounded to first baseman Nelson, who stepped on the bag then looked to throw to second but Mantle alertly slid back to first. This allowed McDougald to score, tying the game. Skowron grounded out to end the inning.

As the bottom of the ninth began, radio announcer Chuck Thompson noted, “Cletus Boyer moves over to play shortstop and Ralph Terry, of course, on the mound will be facing Bill Mazeroski.”10 Mazeroski had forgotten that he was leading off until Pirates coach Lenny Levy reminded him to get a bat. William Stanley Mazeroski selected one of his 125 Pro-model Louisville Sluggers and walked out to the plate to meet destiny. Yankee catcher Johnny Blanchard reminded Terry to keep the ball down because Maz was a notorious highball hitter.

Thompson again: “…Here’s a swing and high fly ball going deep to left. … It may do It! Back to the wall goes Berra; it is over the fence! Home run! The Pirates win! 3:36 pm October 13, 1960.”11

Fifty years later, a 12-foot-tall statue depicting Mazeroski rounding second, batting helmet raised high in his right hand, was unveiled on September 5, 2010, on Mazeroski’s 74th birthday. Mazeroski’s comment: “How could anyone ever dream of something like this?”12

It is ironic that the man, who arguably hit the most dramatic postseason game-winning home run took more pride in his defense. Mazeroski is most identified with the double play, or as Branch Rickey referred to it, the pitcher’s savior.13 Baseball expert Bill James called his defensive statistics the most impressive of any player at any position.

Former teammate Dave Giusti recalled seeing Mazeroski for the first time while playing for the Houston Colt 45s. It was the last inning of a game in Pittsburgh; the Pirates were leading by one run. Houston had the bases loaded with one out. Ronnie Brandt, a catcher who ran well, hit a ball deep in the hole between short and third. Gene Alley backhanded it, spun and threw to second. Giusti did not see the ball being caught at second. The next thing he knew Brandt was out at first and the game was over. Giusti remembered thinking, “Who the hell is that?”14

When Mazeroski joined the Pirates, he partnered with Dick Groat. Their pairing resulted in four appearances in the All-Star Game and three Gold Gloves for the second baseman. The partnership ended on November 19, 1962, when Groat was traded to St. Louis. The next season Mazeroski replaced his friend as the team captain. Groat went to another World Series in 1964 with St. Louis; his keystone partner was Julian Javier, the young second baseman traded away by the Pirates because they already had Mazeroski.

Dick Schofield followed Groat as starting shortstop, a position he held for the 1963 and ‘64 seasons. Mazeroski won his fourth and fifth Gold Gloves. Although they formed a successful combination, it was temporary as another shortstop was being groomed at Columbus, Gene Alley. Years later Alley confessed that he was intimidated seeing Mazeroski take groundballs during spring training. He thought, “If you had to be that good in the majors, I’ll never make it!”15

Together Alley and Mazeroski formed the most successful double-play combination in the major leagues from 1965 to 1972. They turned 113 double plays in 1965, their first season together. It was the sixth time Mazeroski had led in the category. That achievement was especially remarkable because Mazeroski did not begin his season until May because he had broken his foot at the end of spring training. (The injury occurred on a single by Alley, Mazeroski rounded third and when he attempted to stop in the soft dirt he broke his fifth metatarsal.)

The duo’s high-water mark together was arguably 1966. The Pirates’ 215 double plays broke the National League record held by the Brooklyn Dodgers, though it fell short of the Philadelphia Athletics’ major-league record. Mazeroski won his seventh Gold Glove and Alley picked up his first. It was Mazeroski’s finest defensive season. He played in every game, committing only eight errors for a fielding average of .992. He led the National League in chances, putouts, and assists. The season seemed to establish Mazeroski as one of the best fielders ever, yet he did it without much fanfare. As Jim Murray noted in a column, “A half-century ago, a second base combination made something like nine double plays in a season and a poet (Franklin P. Adams) immortalized them with a poem, ‘Tinker to Evers to Chance.’ … Maz makes 161 and they abbreviate his name in the box score.”16

Mazeroski appeared in his last All-Star Game in 1967 and also won his final Gold Glove. He had pulled muscles in both legs, yet played in 163 games, starting 160 of them, and turned 131 double plays.

The 1968 season was decent; the 107 double plays marked the last time Mazeroski reached the century mark. Indications that he was winding down became noticeable. He was still a valuable commodity but in a different way. He quietly assumed a new position on the team. He became a mentor, the elder statesman to a new crop of young players. The 1969 alignment featured Richie Hebner (21 years old) at third, Freddie Patek (24) played short, and Bob Robertson (22) was at first. There was no communication gap among them; their willing ears devoured Mazeroski’s wisdom and information on how to play hitters.

Mazeroski passed Frankie Frisch’s career total for assists with his 6,027th at Wrigley Field in Chicago on April 14, 1969. Statistically, however, 1969 was a subpar season for him both defensively and offensively. He played in only 67 games. While several people figured on a reduced role for him during the 1970s, neither Mazeroski nor manager Murtaugh was ready for the veteran to relinquish his incumbency at second. His faithful manager still expected big things from him. Mazeroski worked hard during the offseason, running in the morning and swimming in the afternoon. The season proved to be full of eventful moments. It was also the last in which he played in more than 100 games.

The Pirates played their last game at the fabled Forbes Field on June 28, 1970. They won both games of a doubleheader with the Cubs, winning the finale by a score of 4-1. Mazeroski recorded the last defensive out of the game and got the last hit. It was not a sad parting between the second baseman and the field. He felt that it possessed the worst infield in the league. He admitted that eventually he became used to it and almost liked it.

A week later on August 5, during a 4-0 win over the Phillies, Mazeroski passed Billy Herman on the all-time list for putouts with 4,781. He had four putouts and three assists and turned a double play during the game.

Bill was known for his quick feet around the bag but was also nicknamed “Tree Stump” because sliding baserunners usually were unable to take him out. Dave Giusti recalled the time a young Ron Stone of the Phillies went into second with intentions of taking Mazeroski out. As Giusti described it, Stone went in and upon contact, slowly melted into a clump and was rewarded with three broken ribs.

Mazeroski’s playing time diminished greatly in 1971. He played in only 70 games, 46 of them at second, as Dave Cash took over at the keystone. Still, Mazeroski was able to reach another milestone, this time for hitting. He lined a double off Wade Blasingame of Houston on August 17 for his 2,000th hit. He also played in his second World Series that year. The Pirates defeated the Baltimore Orioles in seven games. Mazeroski’s only appearance came when he pinch-hit in Game One, flying out to center field. This experience was the polar opposite of 1960. When reporters asked him which championship team was better of the two, he surprised them by saying that no question, the 1971 version was.

Mazeroski turned 35 in 1972 and he was eager to head south for spring training. His old friend and new manager, Bill Virdon, envisioned him as a super utilityman. Not only could he fill in at second but he could also play some third, as well as serve as a valuable instructor and mentor. He was asked to supply similar instruction for Rennie Stennett as he did for Dave Cash the year before. As Joe Morgan, the hall of Fame second baseman, noted, Maz was the “gold standard” for second basemen. He also passed along some advice on how to act like a major leaguer, much as Dale Long did for him during his rookie season.

Willie Stargell, who served the same role later in his own career, said, “Maz taught me the value of patience and consistency.”17

Mazeroski retired after 1972. He pinch-hit for Nellie Briles in his last regular-season at bat, on October 4. His last appearance for the post season was to pinch hit for Dock Ellis on October 10. Roberto Clemente tried to persuade him to spend a winter getting in shape with him in Puerto Rico so he could play longer, but Mazeroski declined, saying he was done fighting his weight issues. Instead he became the Pirates’ third-base coach in 1973. Later he filled the same job description for the Seattle Mariners during the 1979 and 1980 seasons. While coaching did not suit him, he continued to return to the Pirates’ spring training each year as an instructor, teaching players the nuances of playing second base.

As of 2011 Bill and Milene Mazeroski resided in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh, and spent January through May at their second home in Panama City, Florida. Much of his retirement was spent fishing and playing golf. They have two sons and, as of 2011, three grandchildren.

After Mazeroski was inducted into the Hall of Fame a street outside the Pirates PNC Park was renamed for him. The team retired his number in 1987, and in 2010 the statue of him was placed outside the ballpark.

Mazeroski was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 2001. Some critics scoffed at his election, saying his offense (career batting average .260) did not live up to that of others already residing at Cooperstown. Others replied that the caliber of pitchers he faced had to be considered, among them Hall of Fame pitchers like Warren Spahn, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, and Ferguson Jenkins. Also, they said, his sterling defensive play had to be considered.

During his short induction speech, Mazeroski summed it up: “I think defense belongs in the Hall of Fame. Defense deserves as much credit as pitching and I’m proud to be going in as a defensive player. I want to thank the Veterans Committee for getting me here. I thought when the Pirates retired my number that would be the greatest thing ever to happen to me.” He choked. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it, I want to thank everyone who made the trip up here to listen to all this crap. …Thank you to everybody!”18

Last revised: September 12, 2014

This biography is included in the book "Sweet '60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates" (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.